An image-receiving material is employable in an image-forming method which comprises imagewise polymerizing a polymerizable compound contained in a recording material; and transferring the unpolymerized polymerizable compound from the recording material to the image-receiving material.
Examples of the image-forming method are described in Japanese Patent Provisional Publications Nos. 57(1982)-179836, 58(1983)-88739, 58(1983)-88740 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,440,846), 59(1984)-30537, 59(1984)-137944 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,483,912) and 60(1985)-259490 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,235). The image-forming method comprises: imagewise exposing to light the light-sensitive material containing a photopolymerization initiator and a polymerizable compound to imagewise polymerize the polymerizable compound; and pressing the light-sensitive material on an image-receiving material to transfer the unpolymerized polymerizable compound to the image-receiving material.
Recently, it has been found that the image-receiving materials can be advantageously used for another image-forming method employing silver halide as photosensor. The image-forming method is described in Japanese Patent Provisional Publications Nos. 61(1986)-69062 and 61(1986)-73145 (the contents of both publications are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,629,676 and European Patent Provisional Publication No. 0174634A2). The image-forming method comprises: imagewise exposing to light a light-sensitive material comprising a support and a light-sensitive layer containing silver halide, a reducing agent and a polymerizable compound; simultaneously or thereafter developing the light-sensitive material; and pressing the light-sensitive material on the image-receiving material to transfer the unpolymerized polymerizable compound to the image-receiving layer.
Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 62(1987)-161149 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,764,451) describes an embodiment of the image-forming method in which an image-receiving material containing a photopolymerization initiator in the image-receiving layer is employed and the image-receiving material to which unpolymerized polymerizable compound has been transferred is irradiated with light. In this method, the unpolymerized polymerizable compound transferred to the image-receiving material is hardened by the photo polymerization initiator and the iradiation of light. Thus, this method is very effective in improving the preservation stability of the image.